Count down

This last week was a test of many things. A test of endurance, a test of patience, a test of functionality compared to exhaustion, and a test of efficiency. As if smart surfaces couldnt keep us busy, we were loaded down with the work of our 13 other credits. Exams, papers, 3 group presentations, and a video documentary-all due Thursday, and this does NOT include our shy solar cell.

Early this week (tuesday i believe), Chris, Mat, and Johanna finished the file for the formica, and got it routed. This was the last piece before we could really begin gluing things together. I soldered solar cells together all week with Michelle and Jason, so tuesday night would be our first intensive building period.

Johanna glued the formica to the plastic, Chris and Mat worked a lot on the structure and the servos, and Jason and I soldered and soldered and soldered. We finally began to see glimpses of a finished project. We worked until 3 in the sculpture studio, and felt good when we finally packed up to go home.

router

Friday, we took the massive sheet of plastic to the massive router, where a lot of cutting took place. It took a few hours to finish the cut, but it was exciting to really get moving, to the point of FINAL construction! To actually begin putting things together and laying them out, would be a huge step forward, one that we should have probably taken long ago.

theremin wildness

theremin

nine days

nine days!

is not much time

construct

This week has been extremely productive, maybe break helped. Upon meeting with the whole team (minus Jason who is far away- and in touch), we finalized the design and the last materials we would need to buy. We made a schedule of when certain things would need to be accomplished, and divided work. Johanna and I have been gathering inspiration and documentation for the visual that will aid in explaining the project, and Michelle and I worked on the white paper. Chris showed up and taught me and Michelle to saulder, and we sauldered our solar panels in series.

We have example pieces routed, and have fit everything together, made adjustments, and a new file. Chris and Johanna tested the servos, and it appears as though the smallest servos will (unbelievably and hopefully) work to turn our panels. This is very good news, assuming all goes well.

The idea to create a sandwich with two materials came from the weight constrictions of our servos and our desire to hide the wires. We would not be able to use a solid piece of plastic or wood, and to cleanly hide the insides of our project, we may need to do layers similar to the layers of MDF in our previous module hexagon smartsurface.

Our final materials are plastic and fomrica, which allow us all that we desire! We have routed compartments for the solar cells, and the fomrica acts as a skin, protecting and hiding it from the viewer. The panels themselves are looking much better than I was expecting, and the biggest obstacles that remain will be the routing, the construction of the base, and the actual piecing everything together.

the why

This week, we got a lot down. We made decisions regarding dimensions, materials, functionality, and such. We did a number of drawings, and talked through a lot of the design. Upon meeting with our professors, and Michelle, we made (again) FORWARD progress, which was exciting. We are all very excited at this point, and the positive feedback helped fuel discussion that has taken us in a slightly different direction.

Our desire to work with broken solar cells in attempts to make a statement about using recycled solar cells, has shifted to a new direction. We are now making a statement about the waste produced in solar energy instead of using the broken cells themselves.

This will be interesting.
We got together this weekend to work on assembling one cell and to play with resin and the broken solar cells. We tweaked the leaf design a bit and discussed further material options, etc.
We have lots to get done

speaking of a smart surface...

SixthSense